fantasy girl

In the second chapter of my novel, I need to tell the reader some backstory about the MC to set the foundations about why he is so protective over his family. The thing is, I don't know how to do this without info-dumping. I have thought about the MC maby telling his girl friend about it or something because it is all getting to much for him, but I want some other choices. Can anyone help me. All ideas are wecome.

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Beja-Beja

Narrate what happened to him to make him so protective.

Rob

Are you sure? I mean, can't you just show that he is protective? Does the reader really need to know the why? It's not such an unusual quality, and maybe the reason why doesn't matter to a reader.

Cheers,
Rob

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Blog (Unspoken Words): http://blog.bobjacobs.co.uk/

Tom

I second this. There really is no need to have paragraphs and paragraphs at a time explaining why.

That, and you shouldn't tell the reader why he is protective, show them. It's good to have a backstory, but insinuate it into the story gradually, and build up the answer don't just gift it to the reader so quickly.

Good luck.

Ungood

Every time I face this question I often wonder why you need to tell this info, does the reader need to know why, or would just the fact that "he is" be enough to keep the story going, or "That's just the way things are" and go on.

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Tom

I'm not wanting to start an argument here, just stating my opinion.

Personally, I think just leaving the reader to accept it isn't always the best idea. Lots of people want to know 'why?' and if they really want to know a character, they'll want to know enough about their past to understand who they are. It's like, would you have a relationship with someone if you didn't know anything about what they'd done before they met you? Some people would say yes, some would say no. It's all depends on which the reader is, and in most cases, if the author manages to insinuate the past into a novel well enough, both kinds of people are happy.

StephenP2003

Show it through feelings, thoughts, action, and dialogue. You can even try condensing your backstory to one or two sentences, something short enough that can slip into the lead character's thoughts in the moment or aftermath of an action linked to that backstory.

Cheesy Example (this has nothing to do with your story, just pulled it out of thin air):

Laura rolled her eyes. "I guess you'll never get over it, will you."

"You're nothing to me. A subhuman --" Bradley stopped. He wanted to scream it at Laura over and over, make her feel the way she'd made him feel for the last six years. But as it all swam around in his mind, the unmistakable voice of his father carried each hurtful word. Bradley would never become his father.

He looked down at his worn-out loafers and shut his eyes tight. They burned. "Just go," he said.

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A short passage like that tells the reader a lot about the lead character's past. We know he has a bad history with Laura, and she did something Bradley has yet to forgive. We also learned about his relationship with his father, though we don't yet know the details. Still, it's enough for the reader to understand that something related to past relationships has shaped the lead character into what he is today, in this story.

Essentially, it's an info-dump via dialogue. Imagine he ran into Laura at a coffee shop. Even if Laura isn't the official antagonist in this story, she serves as a link to his past, which should play an important role in the lead character's main story goal. You don't need to write a long, heated conversation between Bradley and Laura. There's no need for a long speech as if it's the end of a cheesy mystery novel. You're only on chapter two. You have the whole novel to show us the rest. It shouldn't take more than a few sentences to convince the reader that your lead has a reason to be overprotective about his family.

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Mermaid on the breakwater

Just avoid writing on the nose. Make it difficult for your characters to express themselves. As such, it will be quite difficult to write about. Oddly enough, that's a good thing in this context.

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Ungood

Exactly. The situation decides the outcome. Necessity vs Fluff.


And when you the writer are faced with this situation, you need to ask yourself this very question. Is this a case where I need to tell the back story, or not.

I will openly admit that almost all writers have the back story in their mind (written down, etc) but at this point in the relationship between the reader and the character, do you need to tell them?

Just a question.

Combine that with a simple guide (This is just a simple guide and not to be considered an absolute), if you need to tell them it's not really an info dump, if you don't then, it is.

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Rob

Backstory is perfectly legitimate. Like everything else it needs doing well. Info dump is about how you convey information - and not necessarily backstory - rather than whether you need it. They're two different issues.

A common mistake novice writers make is to believe that you have to explain everything to the reader. You don't. Readers will understand things from what you've written without you having to explicitly state them. They read between the lines. In fact this is the basis of 'show', which is really about writing in such a way as to allow the reader to draw conclusions not explicitly stated from what you've written.

In this case you need to consider whether to just show (or even simply state, tell has a place) that the character is protective within the context of the story, or whether to explain to the reader why the character is protective. If you're going to provide the explanation, don't info-dump. That's all.

Cheers,
Rob

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fantasy girl

Thankyou all of you, many of you have said that it might not even be necessary, but in my opinion it is. A boy is naturally protective over his family if he is the only man in the house. But in this case he is protective for a different reason and I think the reason needs to be known or the reader might get the wrong impression.

if i have gotten this wrong please tell me. Oh and I have also changed my mind. From what i have written so far, the transition between ch1 and 2 is to jolty so i am going to delay the chapter to 3 or 4

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The Wrong Writer

Everybody read Rob's post twice.

By the way, the idea that infodumping is the difference between substance and fluff is flawed.
As mentioned above, it's how you do it. But also, you can see from a lot of writing that it's the "necessary" stuff that's tricky to fit in. You can blow out a big cloud of fluff at about any point and get away with it.

Ungood

This is purely a matter of your own personal opinion on this issues as to what you feel may or may not work. That does not make it a flawed concept, only an idea that does not seem to work for you.

and for the record, writing any story is a product of talent, so to say "it's all in the skill of the writer" is stating the obvious.

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BoredMormon

Write it. Forget about worrying if its infodump or not. Clear it up in the edits. Its far easier to decide what infomation is important and what is not after you finish.

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The Wrong Writer

Why the very idea. My pronouncements here are not a matter of "personal opinion", they are stone cold facts rooted in my first person omniscient scope on the world and God like powers of perception. You should know that by now.


By the way, silly comments like that one get REALLY ridiculous when you follow them up with your own pronouncement "for the record".